Buying a MS3, good price?

[Sergius64]

If it's a loyalty bonus and Mazda doesn't suck as bad as my car then the $500 loyalty bonus should be there no matter when you buy...it's a loyalty bonus to keep you coming back...wtf?

Post a link here when you get that rodent damage thread up! I wanna see that s***.

No, they change a policy on those all the time. I think there was a 1 grand loyalty bonus on MS3 some time last year, then it went down to $500. And then they removed it all together on MS3 in the beginning of this month. They only loyalty bonus they have left is 1 grand on Mazda 6. I'm hoping MS3 bonus comes back in the beginning of March though, as they seem to re-evaluate their incentives in the beginning of each month.

If you go to a dealer and press for this bonus they'll probably give "it" to you, but it will be $500 that they would have given to you anyway if you haggled enough.

 

[shaftwagon]

here's the link to the story of rodent damage on my new MS3 if anyone's interested.

http://www.mazdas247.com/forum/showthread.php?p=4398792#post4398792

 

[my3needsaname]

No, they change a policy on those all the time. I think there was a 1 grand loyalty bonus on MS3 some time last year, then it went down to $500. And then they removed it all together on MS3 in the beginning of this month. They only loyalty bonus they have left is 1 grand on Mazda 6. I'm hoping MS3 bonus comes back in the beginning of March though, as they seem to re-evaluate their incentives in the beginning of each month.

If you go to a dealer and press for this bonus they'll probably give "it" to you, but it will be $500 that they would have given to you anyway if you haggled enough.

That sucks. Volvo, Ford, Lincoln, Mercury, Acura, Lexus, Honda, Toyota, BMW, some GM brands, etc etc...all offer a loyalty bonus no matter when you buy. Too bad Mazda doesn't. I guess it's another reason I won't be getting another.

 

[copperhead455]

I paid about invice for my red GT. It was about the same price as he has lsited for that sport. He can do better.

 

[Sergius64]

Yeah, I ordered some booklet on car buying called "Fighting Chance" since I'm planning to purchase a new MS3 fairly soon. Figured 40 bucks for the booklet might save me a grand or more since it'll give me much better fact ammunition against the dealers. Haven't gotten it in the mail yet though, so I don't know if the info inside is as helpful as the advertisements claimed it would be.

But anyway, when you're buying a new car the way to get the best price is to get quotes from several different dealerships, and then take the best offer and contanct the other dealers to see if they wanna beat it. Then you can try to rinse-repeat.

 

[shaftwagon]

Sergius- that's exactly what I did. I emailed every single dealer within a 150 mile radius and told them I was ready to buy immediately. The internet sales departments gave me their best prices and I pit them against each other. I also found a couple dealers listing on craigslist across the country selling the 2008 MS3's super cheap and used that for extra leverage (use something like crazedlist to search every city). That's how I got my sweet price.

The '08 is the best deal right now. They offered me '09s for $1500 more. Also, they don't offer the '09s in sunlight silver (the best color IMHO). The GT model tacked on another $2k for things I didn't want to pay for.

Examples of amazing deals right now advertised by dealers:
http://austin.craigslist.org/ctd/1048467597.html
http://austin.craigslist.org/ctd/1028166494.html

 

[Sergius64]

Yeah, my bigger concern is getting shafted on my Trade In. Its an 05 Mazda3 hatch with 42k miles. But it's got body damage in several places, and it had 1 panel replaced cause some bastard hit it while it was parked, so its really hard for me to estimate what it's worth.

 

[shaftwagon]

In my experience, the best way to gauge the actual value of your trade towards a new car is to go to as many dealerships as possible and see what they will give you (they don't even have to be mazda dealerships). For my '03 protege5, the 4 dealerships I went to were within $500-1000. They have to actually see and inspect the car- there's no way around this.

 

[Sergius64]

I'm thinking of attaching bunch of pictures of the car and description and sending that to all the dealers along with the request for a quote on a new MS3. Driving to all the dealerships in 150 mile radius to get my trade in estimated is going to add like 1k miles to it and take forever. And holding off on talking about the trade in until I get the lowest price on the new one is just going to get me into a situation where a dealer is going to try to make up for the subpar deal on the new one by ripping me off on the trade in.

 

[protege02]

please dont buy anything like this. I called them just to prove a point to my friend. I asked them if it still had a warranty, and the guy said yeah, it's like new. I was like, can you get a print out from the local mazda dealer saying it's still under warranty, and he still hasn't gotten back to me. It would be a good car to part out, but I bet it was repo, and I bet it was beat on too. also, he said he would sell it for $17.3 after everything that came up in our 5 min or so convo.

http://www.cars.com/go/search/detai...ional&paId=303232612&recnum=0&leadExists=true

 

[protege02]

this one is a good deal, but I would still reach for $16k as a goal cause it never hurts to haggle.

http://www.cars.com/go/search/detai...ional&paId=293628600&recnum=3&leadExists=true

 

[shaftwagon]

or you can get a brand new '08 MS3 sport for about 20k with a 3 year/36,000 mile warranty (see links I attached before). it's a no brainer to me- get the new.

I learned a very important lesson a few months ago. I almost bought a used wrx. Right after I had it inspected by my mechanic and we drove it around and the mechanic said "there's something wrong with the transmission, don't buy it", the shift fork snapped. The owner threatened to sue me, but he had no case. Lesson learned: people beat on performance cars MUCH harder than regular cars. that's why they buy them. Buying a used performance car is a HUGE gamble and risk. without a warranty, you can get really screwed. it's not a sound investment in my eyes. Now buying a used Camry, etc. is a whole different story.

 

[dizzin9]

bought my friend's car for 18k with 1700 miles on it

 

[GoFast]

or you can get a brand new '08 MS3 sport for about 20k with a 3 year/36,000 mile warranty (see links I attached before). it's a no brainer to me- get the new.

where is this 36k warranty thing coming from??? The car comes with a 5 year/60k power train warranty + 36k/3 year bumper to bumper (smash)

 

[my3needsaname]

where is this 36k warranty thing coming from??? The car comes with a 5 year/60k power train warranty + 36k/3 year bumper to bumper (smash)

Because it has a 3 year/36,000 mile bumper-bumper warranty and that's really the only warranty that people count. Nobody really realizes we have a longer powertrain warranty and dealerships usually don't acknowledge it the way they really should unless you b**** then they find a loophole and screw you over in the end.